Tinder by ReadingIsForNerds
by Midnight Delight NYE Contest
Summary: Edward has a New Year's surprise for the woman in his bed and he can barely wait to give it to her. Will she love it or will she hate it? Either way, Edward and Bella are about to start a new adventure together. No other New Year's Eve will ever compare to this one.


**Contest entry for the Midnight Delight NYE Contest**

 **Title:** Tinder

 **Summary:** Edward has a New Year's surprise for the woman in his bed and he can barely wait to give it to her. Will she love it or will she hate it? Either way, Edward and Bella are about to start a new adventure together. No other New Year's Eve will ever compare to this one.

 **Pairing:** Edward and Bella

 **Rating:** M

 **Word Count:** 5,186

 **Disclaimer:** Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.

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 **Tinder**

No other New Year's Eve will ever compare to this one...

I look down at the dark-haired woman in my arms, tucked tightly into our bed, and I can't help but smile. She's beautiful, smart, and has no idea what's in store for us this next year. It's taken over three months of planning and careful preparation and I am beyond ready for the new adventure 2019 will bring.

When I notice it is thirty minutes 'till midnight, I know my time is up. Carefully, very carefully, I slide my arm, inch by inch, from under her sleeping head. When she stirs a little, her pale pink eyelids fluttering, I think for a moment that I've woken her and ruined my plans. When she rolls onto her side, and her mouth falls slack after a couple of minutes, I know I'm in the clear and slowly get out of bed. Once my feet hit the floor, I do a small celebratory dance, grateful I didn't wake her. If she found me out of bed, the surprise would surely be ruined.

I tiptoe into the closet and shut the door. For a moment, my hand fumbles around in the dark before I feel the cord above my head and give it a tug. The bright light blinds me for a moment, and I have to blink a dozen times before my eyes adjust. When they do, I bend down and pull out one of our suitcases from behind a row of my clothes.

As I start to fill it, my mind drifts to my beautiful brunette. In just a short, thirty minutes Bella is going to be so excited when she finds out I booked tickets to Fiji. I can practically see the excitement on her face when I flash them, along with our newly arrived passports. My heart races when she squeals with excitement the way I know she will when I tell her.

I live to make her happy.

The first time I saw her, she was giggling loudly at something her boyfriend said, and my heart had immediately stopped beating in my chest. It felt like an eternity before it started again. When it finally did, my palms clammed up, the breath in my lungs caught, and there was only one thought that ran through my mind.

She will be mine.

 _Emily had dragged me to her office party stating I had been a colossal grouch the past few months and that I needed to stop being so ornery – get out of the house more and loosen up – telling me all our friends agreed with her. To say I was not in the mood to go to her law office's Christmas party was an understatement._

 _Work was at the top of the list of things I hated, and I guess you could say it caused my persistent bad mood. It all began when I lost my last job as head of the architecture department at Forever Sun Builders in Seattle. A spoiled rich prick, who was impossible to please, got angry when I refused to compromise on one of my proudest designs. When I told him to find another guy for his project, he called the owner of the company and threatened him with being blacklisted if he didn't get rid of me. Since then, I had to settle for a low-level architect job in a crappy northern town in the middle of nowhere America._

 _Now I'm at this damn party, and my mood only soured more, when in the first ten minutes of being there, Emily spotted Sam and hurried off to him, leaving me with a beer, sulking in the corner of the room. I suspected they had been sleeping together for at least two months and the sight of them almost made me want to vomit. The way they looked at each other was too much for most of the people in attendance to see, me included. There was too much love and adoration in their shared gaze. Even a hint of lust. She denied it, of course, stating adamantly that they were friends and he was engaged to some chick named Leah. I just didn't understand why she lied to me about it._

 _She was constantly on her phone, smiling every time it vibrated and would email and text for hours on end, claiming it was just business they were discussing. In fact, I hadn't seen her this happy in a long time which pissed me off even more. I guess you could say I had turned into Scrooge himself, and I was fine with that description. Mainly because it was true. I hated the holidays. There was so much smiling and love going around that is was nauseating._

 _The cheery Christmas music was too loud and obnoxious for the small office they worked in, the lights too bright for a Friday night party, and the people were definitely too boring. Everyone stood around and told horrible lawyer jokes, talking about case law and the clients they had. I wanted nothing more than to leave and wallow in my own self-pity and misery at home. If I was going to wallow, I'd rather do_ _it in_ _my living room. It only took thirty seconds after Emily's partner tried to engage me in conversation to decide that leaving was precisely what I was going to do._

 _I drained the rest of my beer and slammed it down on the nearest table, planning to leave Emily here – Sam would give her a ride home - and drive back to the suburbs when a head full of multifaceted brown hair with deep auburn highlights flicked against my arm as I pushed off the wall. I had been too focused on scowling at Emily for dragging me here to even notice that a girl and her handsy boyfriend had fallen against the wall next to me_.

 _I looked down at her just as she tilted her head back, laughing heartily with her eyes closed, and I was a goner. I had no choice in the matter. The moment my eyes took her in, I was hers, and she was mine. I couldn't help but stare at her in amazement. I had never seen anyone so devastatingly beautiful. Her lips were a very seductive shade of red, and when I leaned in a tad closer, she smelled of lavender and vanilla._

" _There you are. I didn't see you hiding here in the corner." My eyes were torn from the stunning brunette by Emily's voice. She smiled at me and then looked at the beauty. "Oh, I should introduce the two of you."_

" _Bella."_

Such a beautiful name.

 _Bella turned and smiled at Emily. "I'd like you to meet Edward. Edward, this is Bella. She's the new paralegal we just hired to help around the office_."

 _The second our eyes met, I felt a shockwave run through me from my scalp to my toes. Her eyes darkened as she took me in. "You weren't lying, Emily," Bella said, looking at me. "He_ is _extremely gorgeous."_

 _I blushed like a little school girl._

" _What?" her boyfriend said, his words slurring together so badly they were barely discernable. "I'm standing right here, Stella."_

" _And you're too drunk to even remember my name," she said, looking back at him with disgust._

 _I was sorely disappointed when she looked back to Emily. "I thought for sure you were exaggerating."_

 _Emily laughs. "Most people think I am."_

" _It's really nice to meet you, Edward." She said in the most seductive voice I'd ever heard. She held out her hand to me, and I shook it, goosebumps prickling over every inch of my skin when we touched._

" _And it's really nice to meet you too, Bella."_

That ended up being the biggest understatement of my life.

I shake my head, bringing myself back to the present and reminding myself I don't have much time before midnight. I really need to pick up my pace if I'm going to stay on schedule.

Looking around the closet, I scan the shelves and drawers, making sure I have everything on my mental checklist. Passports, the right amount of clothes, the diamond engagement ring I bought for her birthday in four days, and a few mementos I've kept hidden in a box from the past three-hundred and eighty-one days since we met. I slip on a pair of jeans and a thick pullover. It's been snowing for days, so I forgo my tennis shoes and shove my feet into my thick winter boots.

Once I realize I'm ready, my heart speeds up to match the pace of a hummingbird's. The excitement I feel is indescribable. I can barely keep myself from running out of the closet right now and telling the dark-haired beauty what I've been planning since September, and watch the shock spread across her pretty face.

But I can't.

I don't want to ruin the surprise.

After taking a few deep breaths to calm myself, I reach up and pull the chain once more, surrounding myself in darkness with my other hand firmly secured around the handle on the suitcase. Just like when I turned the light on, it takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust. When I can see the outline of the closet door, I open it and quietly hurry over to the bathroom. I step inside and take off my glasses, expertly popping in my contacts with only the moonlight coming from the window.

I almost jump out of my skin when a soft snore breaks the deep quiet of the room. I chuckle at myself for a few seconds before walking back into the bedroom and grabbing the luggage. I need to get it downstairs and into the car before I do something too loud and wake her.

 _Why does she have to be such a light sleeper?!_

I steal one more glance at her silhouette in the dark, thinking over every new memory I've made with my soulmate in 2018, and I know I am doing the right thing. Nothing is going to make me happier than asking Bella to be my wife in a few short days.

I silently move out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me and making sure the broken door handle catches when it shuts. I carefully step over the laundry basket in the hall, my hand reaching out for the stair railing and using it to help me balance the weight of the suitcase in my hands as I descend to the first floor.

I place the luggage by the front door and hurry to the kitchen. I open the junk drawer and pull out the lighter we keep there and grab a few candles from under the sink. Checking the time, I see I only have eight minutes left, and a new sense of urgency courses through me.

Midnight is approaching fast.

Carrying the candles over to the living room, I set them down in front of the fireplace where the Christmas tree is only a couple of feet away. The dim glow from the lights on it allows me to see enough to spread out the throw blanket I grabbed from the back of the couch across the floor. I bend over and light the candles in a semi-circle around it. I watch them burn for a minute, satisfied with the romantic scene I've set after adding some pillows.

I turn and hurry over to the whiteboard that hangs on the fridge and pick up the black marker hanging from it and write out a quick message. " _If you wake before I'm back, I'm sorry. I lied about salting the sidewalk earlier. We don't have any more salt, so I'm running to the all-night store to get some, so you don't slip on the ice in the morning when you go for your run. I'll be back before you know it. I love you. P.S. Tonight was AMAZING!"_

I let the marker fall, and it swings slowly from the string attached to the board. I creep over to the front door with only two minutes to spare before my self-imposed timeline and turn it open. The cold air of the wintery night hits my face, and a chill runs through me. The bitter cold is something I've always hated since moving to northern Michigan. The only good thing that's happened here in this frozen state is meeting Bella. That simple fact made it worth living here for the past three years.

I turn around once the suitcase is perched on the porch next to me and lock the door, making sure the two deadbolts are secure, along with the built-in lock on the door handle.

"Boo!" I hear someone whisper shout.

I spin on my heels and come face to face with the beautiful star of my dreams. "Holy shit, Bella. You scared me to death. I almost screamed." She covers her mouth with her hand to muffle her giggles. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to wait for me on the corner by your place."

"I was too excited!" she squeals quietly. "I wanted to be here when you walked out the door." Seeing the worried look on my face, she waves her hand. They could track her cell phone movements. "Don't worry, my brother dropped me off."

"But what about his ankle monitor?"

"Puh-lease. He's been all over town this past week, and the location sensor has never been tripped. He knows a guy who rigs them for a small fee."

"Are you sure?" I ask, afraid that she could be mistaken.

She rolls her eyes adorably. "Positive. Now quit being such a worry wart and let's get the hell out of here. No one found out about the gun he got us, did they?"

I give her a huge smile before pulling her against me, crashing my mouth against hers and tangling my fingers in her long brown hair. When she starts to moan against my lips, I know I need to pull back. We'll end up having sex right here on the porch in the cold if I don't stop. Tightening my grip on the roots of her hair, I pull her back. Desire pools deep in her eyes as I look down at her. "We really do have to go. We can finish this later."

"Promise?" she asks, quirking her brow at me.

"Promise. Now, let's go." I give her a pat on her ass when she hurries ahead of me, jumping in the front seat of my truck. I toss my luggage in the back and climb in the driver's seat. "I can't believe it's finally happening!" I say loudly, almost shouting. My excitement is starting to bubble over.

"I know!" she screams back. "Everything is going to be so perfect in a couple of months."

I can't help it. I lean across the console and pull her in for a quick, deep kiss. I groan with disappointment and longing when I pull back. "Let's get the hell out of here."

I crank up the truck and check the time. Only one minute left until time is up. Knowing I am out of time, I hit the gas, and we go barreling down the long, newly paved driveway. When Bella remains quiet, I look over. She's biting her lip nervously.

"What's wrong, baby?" I ask her.

"Are you sure it will turn on?"

I roll my eyes, just like she did to me only moments ago. "Positive. The Roomba goes off every night, five minutes before midnight. The first track it makes is right in front of the fireplace."

"And the tree. You're sure it's dry?"

"Yes, my love. I quit watering it over two and a half weeks ago. Don't worry. Our plan is flawless. The vacuum will knock over the candles, and at least one of them will roll under the tree. It will go up in flames in a matter of seconds. The bedroom door handle is still broken, just like it has been for the past month, and Emily won't be able to get out of our room. And even if she does, I placed the laundry basket at the top of the stairs. If she gets out, she'll trip over it and fall down the stairs in her haste to get out of the burning house."

I hate seeing her worry like this. All I ever want is to see Bella smiling. That's why we're doing this.

"Tell me again how much we'll get?" she asks, the worry on her face slowly morphing into excitement.

"The life insurance payout it $1.2 million and the house insurance payout is $543,000. We'll be having sex on a bed of cash in only a month, baby."

She squeals and my heart soars at the excitement she shows. The next thing I know, she's throwing herself in my lap and kissing me, even though I'm driving. My cock throbs in my pants as she shoves her tongue in my mouth. "Tell me you'll fuck me on the pile of ashes that will soon be your house," She whispers seductively on my lips.

I pull back and make sure I'm not going to crash into a passing tree as we reach the end of the driveway. My cock swells even more with the visual she just gave me. "We'll fuck all night long on top of the ashes if you want."

"Just like we did on Sam's grave?" she asks before biting my lip.

"You know it," I growl at her. "I still get hard every time I think about you shooting him in that alley," I smirk as I remember his stunned face. "He was so shocked to see you standing there, holding a gun to his chest."

I can't help but think about that day and how sexy Bella had been.

" _Are you sure he went in there?" I asked Bella, looking toward the pharmacy storefront, trying and failing to see through the glass and spot him._

" _He goes there every day to have lunch with his mom."_

" _Is that why you called me here? So we could stalk him?" I asked, confused as to why she insisted I sneak out of my office and meet her in her car, parked across the street from an old, mom and pop pharmacy._

 _She grinned devilishly up at me. "Not exactly." She said, trailing a finger up my chest. "I saw him kiss Emily last week in the break room at the office."_

 _I wasn't really surprised, having suspected they were having an affair for a long time, but never being able to prove it. Still, anger coursed through me._

" _He pressed her up against the wall and kissed her. She pushed him away and said something about being married. Sam whispered something to her and then it was her that reached up and kissed him back." She shook her head. "That's so disrespectful."_

" _Disrespectful?" I asked her._

" _Yes. She's not his to kiss. She's married." Bella said, leaning up to kiss me. When she pressed her luscious lips against mine, my pulse quickened, and we were soon grabbing each other's body parts over our clothes._

" _Oh, the irony." I laughed. She almost had me coming undone over the top of my slacks when she pulled away, her head snapping back to the store._

" _You see? There he is." She said, whispering as if he could hear us in her car. I groaned with disappointment and tore my gaze from Bella's pink lips. When I looked out of her car window, I could see him hugging an older woman and kiss her on the cheek._

 _I was momentarily stunned when she shoved me away and said, "Hurry." I watched as she got out of the car and I quickly followed. Sam was now turning to walk down an alleyway in between two buildings. Bella ran around the car and grabbed my hand, pulling me down the street to follow him._

 _It was only a short thirty seconds later when we caught up to him. "Sam!" Bella shouted, letting go of my hand and waving at him with a big smile. I mirrored her and smiled at the bastard._

 _He spun around, and surprise flitted across his face as he looked at the two of us. "Bella? What are you doing here? And you, Edward?"_

" _Oh, we saw you and thought we'd walk with you back to the office."_

 _His eyes drifted from Bella, and he looked down at my crotch. Apparently, I was still sporting a hard-on. "Really?" he asked dubiously. "It looks like the two of you were doing something else."_

" _Maybe we were," Bella said as she reached him and pulled out the gun her brother had given us. We had planned to use it for Emily._

 _His eyes widened, and his face paled._

" _And maybe we were following you into the alley so we could kill you for kissing his wife."_

 _My cock shamelessly throbbed even harder at the sight of Bella holding that gun to his chest. After taking his wallet and phone, she pulled the trigger, and we both ran. We found an abandoned store half a mile away, where we had wild, crazy sex, and then burned his stuff in the dumpster out back._

"Well, he shouldn't have been careless enough to kiss Emily at the office where people could see. I mean, she's _your_ wife for crying out loud. Not his."

" _Used to be_ my wife," I say grinning widely, and she giggles. "And anyway, you don't think it's hypocritical that we had just fucked on top of Emily's desk the day before; after everyone had gone home?"

"Not one tiny bit." She says, smiling at me.

I let out a booming laugh as she slides back over to her seat and I pull out onto the highway. That's when I look in the rearview mirror and see a soft glow coming from where the house is. "Look, baby!" I tell Bella. "The house is already up in flames."

She spins around and looks out the back window. "My God, that's a beautiful sight." She whispers.

Looking over at her face being lit up by the glow of the moonlight as we drive away, I know she couldn't be more wrong. "No. You are. Only you, baby."

She beams at me, her eyes twinkling as she looks into my eyes. She sighs, leaning over the console once more to press a kiss to my lips. "We're rich and finally free of everything that has been holding us back."

"It's just you and me now. The world is our playground. How does Fiji sound?"

Her eyes light up. "Fiji sounds perfect. We should go there."

"It's a good thing you said that." She gives me a quizzical look. "Open up the front of the suitcase."

Her smile is blinding as she reaches into the back seat and unzips the front pocket. She pulls out the plane tickets and the new passports I had made. "You bought plane tickets to Fiji!" she screams.

"I sure did, Mrs. Cullen." I grin at her.

"Mrs. Cullen?" she asks. I nod to the passports, and she flips them open, reading our new names. "You'll be Isabella Cullen, and I will be your husband, Edward Cullen. But, I'm still going to call you Swan. It'll be our little inside secret."

"I'm sort of bummed. I was looking forward to being Mrs. Edward Masen." She pouts adorably up at me.

I reach over and caress her face. "We have to change our names in case the cops decide to dig deeper in a few months and find something we missed later on. If they do – which they won't because our plan is damn near perfect – Edward Masen and Bella Swan will have disappeared into thin air with almost two million dollars."

She looks at me, and all I can see is love in her eyes. "There's never been anyone who has loved anyone else as much as I love you. I guess in the long run, names don't really matter. Just you and me."

As we pull up to a stop sign on the deserted country road Emily had once dragged me to, my phone chirps loudly, letting me know it's midnight and a new year has just started. I'm sure 2019 will be the best year of my life. "It's midnight," I tell my beautiful girlfriend. "Happy New Year, baby."

Once more, she throws herself in my lap, kissing me deeply. When she finally pulls back just as my lungs feel like they are going to explode, she gives me the biggest smile I've ever seen. "Happy New Year, my love. 2019 is going to be the year of Bedward."

"Bedward?!" I laugh.

"No?" she asks. "How about Edwella?"

"That's worse than the first one." I laugh loudly. "How about we just call ourselves the Cullens."

"That sounds perfect to me. I love you." She sighs, looking deeply into my eyes.

"I love you more."

We drive to town, and I drop her off before grabbing a bag of salt from the Quickie Mart next to her apartment. As I drive back to my house, I revel in the fact that my wife is now dead, and Bella and I will finally be free to be together.

"Yes, 2019 will undoubtedly be the best year of my life."

I groaned when I turned back into my driveway. I could see the lights from the fire department up ahead and knew I had to put on a good show of a grieving husband when all I wanted to do was throw a party.

The mile-long driveway was a blessing in disguise because it allowed me time to get in the right frame of mind. By the time I pulled up to my house, firefighters were still trying to beat back the inferno. There was an ambulance to the right where a large group of people stood.

Taking a deep breath, I hopped out of my truck in a hurry and ran towards the burning house as fast as I could. "My wife! My wife is in the house!" I shout, making my voice catch in just the right places. A cop tackles me before I can make it to the front steps, stopping me from having to fake my attempt to go inside and retrieve that slut.

 _Thank goodness for small miracles._

"We got her out!" he shouts in my ear.

"What?!" I shout with surprise.

"She's over there, in the ambulance." He nods his head to the group of people.

I take a second to wrap my head around that piece of information. "Is she okay?"

I'm beyond relieved when his face turns pale. "She's…burned pretty badly, but alive."

I shove him off me, wanting to see for myself. I jump up and sprint towards the ambulance. "Move!" I shout at the firefighters and cops surrounding the large vehicle. I push multiple people out of the way and even stumble when someone falls, and I have to step over them. "Move!"

"Edward?" I hear a very gravely and weak voice say. I'm at the back of the open ambulance now and can see the EMTs working on Emily.

"I'm here, baby," I say, doing my best not to grimace at the endearment that I just forced through my lips.

 _I can't believe she's still alive!_

I pull myself up and into the back of the ambulance. I gasp, horrified when I see her.

She's completely covered in burns. I can see her pajamas have melted into her skin in a few places. When I look up to her face, I gasp again, seeing that half of her hair is gone and the rest of it is burned into an ugly pixie length. Her face is bright red and blistered, pulled into a ghastly grimace where the fire burned too deep. When I meet her eyes with mine, I see she no longer has eyelids. The only things still intact are her lips and chin.

Relief coursed through me after my assessment. There is no way she is going to survive. In fact, I think she is probably going to die any minute. The look on the EMT's face as she tries and fails to get an IV into her shriveled arm only confirms my theory.

"Oh my God, Emily," I say, kneeling beside her. My hands move to touch her, but they end up hovering over her body, not finding anywhere that isn't covered in burns. Her breath is rattling shallowly in and out of her parted lips. "You're going to be fine," I tell her.

"I can't believe she's still conscious." I hear one of the EMTs whisper to the other one.

"At least he'll get to tell her goodbye." The other one says back. They both then cut their eyes to me and see tears sliding down my cheeks. I've been practicing to make myself cry for months now, glad that I did, because, on the inside, I'm doing a happy dance.

Her voice rattles when she tries to talk, and I lean forward, closer to her. "Shh. You don't have to talk. I'm here."

I then look to the EMTs. "Can I have some time to say goodbye?" I ask, my voice quivering perfectly.

 _I should win an Oscar after this performance._

They both look at each other and then back at me. "We'll…give you some privacy." They then get out and shut one of the doors on the back of the ambulance.

I turn back to Emily and see that I don't have much time. I smile at her. "Oh, Emily. I can't believe you're still alive." I see her hand twitch, and I almost vomit, realizing she wants me to hold her grossly burned hand.

 _Ewww._

She groans softly, and I lean into her after checking to make sure no one is around. Only after she locks eyes with me do I begin to whisper in her ear.

"I just want you to know it was me. I set the house on fire."

I lean back and can see that she understands what I've said, the surprise and horror in her glassy eyes clear for me to see.

I lean in again. "I wanted you to die. You see, I'm in love with Bella, and you've become nothing but an obstacle in our path to happiness. All you cared about was Sam, and all I care about is Bella. We've been together since the night we met, and now that you're going to die, all my dreams are about to come true."

I smile, hearing her labored breathing become quicker and more erratic as I speak. I lean up and press a kiss to her lips. The moment I pull back, I watch as the light leaves her eyes and her chest deflates as her last breath escapes.

"Happy New Year, dear wife of mine."

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